Thou sawest, in these woods by Loire side, the fair shapes of old religion, Fauns, Nymphs, and Satyrs, and heard’st in the nightingale’s music the plaint of Philomel.  The ancient poets came back in the train of thyself and of the Spring, and learning was scarce less dear to thee than love; and thy ladies seemed fairer for the names they borrowed from the beauties of forgotten days, Helen and Cassandra.  How sweetly didst thou sing to them thine old morality, and how gravely didst thou teach the lesson of the Roses!  Well didst thou know it, well didst thou love the Rose, since thy nurse, carrying thee, an infant, to the holy font, let fall on thee the sacred water brimmed with floating blossoms of the Rose!

  Mignonne, allons voir si la Rose,
  Qui ce matin avoit desclose
  Sa robe de pourpre au soleil,
  A point perdu ceste vespree
  Les plis de sa robe pourpree,
  Et son teint au votre pareil.

And again,

  La belle Rose du Printemps,
  Aubert, admoneste les hommes
  Passer joyeusement le temps,
  Et pendant que jeunes nous sommes,
  Esbattre la fleur de nos ans.

In the same mood, looking far down the future, thou sangest of thy lady’s age, the most sad, the most beautiful of thy sad and beautiful lays; for if thy bees gathered much honey ’t was somewhat bitter to taste, as that of the Sardinian yews.  How clearly we see the great hall, the grey lady spinning and humming among her drowsy maids, and how they waken at the word, and she sees her spring in their eyes, and they forecast their winter in her face, when she murmurs ‘’Twas Ronsard sang of me.’

Winter, and summer, and spring, how swiftly they pass, and how early time brought thee his sorrows, and grief cast her dust upon thy head.

  Adieu ma Lyre, adieu fillettes,
  Jadis mes douces amourettes,
  Adieu, je sens venir ma fin,
  Nul passetemps de ma jeunesse
  Ne m’accompagne en la vieillesse,
  Que le feu, le lict et le vin.

Wine, and a soft bed, and a bright fire:  to this trinity of poor pleasures we come soon, if, indeed, wine be left to us.  Poetry herself deserts us; is it not said that Bacchus never forgives a renegade? and most of us turn recreants to Bacchus.  Even the bright fire, I fear, was not always there to warm thine old blood, Master, or, if fire there were, the wood was not bought with thy book-seller’s money.  When autumn was drawing in during thine early old age, in 1584, didst thou not write that thou hadst never received a sou at the hands of all the publishers who vended thy books?  And as thou wert about putting forth the folio edition of 1584, thou didst pray Buon, the bookseller, to give thee sixty crowns to buy wood withal, and make thee a bright fire in winter weather, and comfort thine old age with thy friend Gallandius.  And if Buon will not pay, then to try the other book-sellers, ’that wish to take everything and give nothing.’